Camera Work: A Photographic Quarterly (1903 (Heft 3))

I believe that here are observable the first steps, still somewhat hesita-
ting but already significant, toward an important evolution. Art has held
itself aloof from the great movement, which for half a century has engrossed
all forms of human activity in profitably exploiting the natural forces that fill
heaven and earth. Instead of calling to his aid the enormous forces ever
ready to serve the wants of the world, as an assistance in those mechanical and
unnecessarily fatiguing portions of his labor, the artist has remained true to
processes which are primitive, traditional, narrow, small, egotistical and over-
scrupulous, and thus has lost the better part of his time and energy. These
processes date from the days when man believed himself alone in the uni-
verse, confronted by innumerable enemies. Little by little he discovers that
these innumerable enemies were but allies and mysterious slaves of man which
had not been taught to serve him. Man, to-day, is on the point of realizing
that everything around him begs to be allowed to come to his assistance and
is ever ready to work with him and for him, if he will but make his wishes
understood. This glad message is daily spreading more widely through all
the domains of human intelligence. The artist alone, moved by a sort of
superannuated pride, has refused to listen to the modern voice. He reminds
one of one of those unhappy solitary weavers, still to be found in remote
parts of the country, who, though weighed down by the misery of poverty
and useless fatigue, yet absolutely continues to weave coarse fabric by an
antiquated and obsolete method, and this although but a few steps from his
cabin are to be found the power of the torrent, of coal and of wind, which
offer to do twenty times in one hour the work which costs him a long month
of slavery, and to do it better.
It is already many years since the sun revealed to us its power to
portray objects and beings more quickly and more accurately than can pencil
or crayon. It seemed to work only its own way and at its own pleasure.
At first man was restricted to making permanent that which the impersonal
and unsympathetic light had registered. He had not yet been permitted to
imbue it with thought. But to-day it seems that thought has found a fissure
through which to penetrate the mystery of this anonymous force, invade it,
subjugate it, animate it, and compel it to say such things as have not yet
been said in all the realm of chiaroscuro, of grace, of beauty and of truth.

Maurice Maeterlinck.
(Translated.)